Assamese migrant worker Ameerul Islam (23) is the only accused in the sensational case pertaining to the brutal rape-murder of Jisha, a 29-year-old Dalit law student in Perumbavoor, 45 kilometres east of Kochi, as per the chargesheet submitted by a special investigation team of the Kerala Police in the Principal Sessions Court, Ernakulam on Saturday.
Sources said the police had taken all possible care to ensure that the chargesheet was foolproof in the context of the reversal the sensational Soumya rape-murder case suffered on Thursday when the Supreme Court set aside the death sentence awarded to the accused, Govindachamy, by the trial court and ratified by the High Court due to lack of evidence.
According to the chargesheet, the Assamese migrant worker, who had trespassed into Jisha’s house with the intention of raping her, had brutally killed her using a knife. He had killed the young Dalit woman after she resisted his attempt to rape her, it said. The only reason behind the murder was lust, the chargesheet said.
The charges slapped on Ameerul Islam, termed as a sexual pervert, included murder, rape, trespassing, inflicting injuries to private parts and destruction of evidences. The police had reached their conclusions in the case on the basis of circumstantial and scientific evidences, witness statements and material evidences.
Claiming that the investigation team had been able to file a foolproof chargesheet, Rural Superintendent of Police (Ernakulam) PN Unnirajan said, “I believe that the police have completed a crucial stage of the probe successfully.”
He said Ameerul was under the influence of alcohol while committing the crime.
Unnirajan said that the police had worked tirelessly, spending several sleepless nights, in order to file the chargesheet within 90 days from the date of crime to deny the accused the opportunity of getting bail. However, the chargesheet was actually filed on the 93rd day from the date of crime as Wednesday, the 90th day, and the two subsequent days were holidays in the State.
The body of Jisha was found by her mother Rajeswari in their single-room, under-construction house at Vattolippady near Perumbavoor on the night of April 28 when the latter came home from work. The police had found dozens of wounds on the body and the genitals had been mutilated using some sharp weapon.
The controversies that dogged the investigation in which there were alleged lapses in the initial stage and the protests over the inability of the State police’s probe team to nab the culprit had played big role in the defeat of the Congress-led UDF, which was in power then, in the May 16 Assembly election after which the CPI(M)-led lDF came to power with a huge majority.
The new Government, headed by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan who also held the Home portfolio, constituted a new team supervised by Additional DGP B Sandhya to probe the Jisha murder in accordance with the public demand that a woman official should oversee the probe. Ameerul was taken into custody on June 15.
As per the 1,500-page chargesheet, there were 195 witnesses in the case. The investigators claimed that they had seized the knife which Ameerul had used to kill Jisha and the report of DNA analysis of the blood found on it was important evidence. The chief witness is Sreelekha, a neighbour of Jisha who had seen Ameerul coming out of her house on the day of the murder.
Sreelekha had later identified the killer in an identification parade. The police had depended on 125 documents including four DNA analysis reports to build the case against Islam. Apart from the scientific evidences, there were 70 pieces of material evidence. The police had quizzed nearly 1,500 persons and taken 30 persons into custody during the course of the probe.
Though Ameerul had in his confessions mentioned about one Anarul Islam, another migrant worker, his name has not been mentioned in the chargesheet. Stating that nobody with the name of Anarul had any role in the crime and that Ameerul was the lone killer, Unnirajan said many of the stories that had come up after the incident were false.